To every New Yorker who attends a festival in a park, tends a bed of vegetables in a community garden or runs along the Harlem or Hudson Rivers, the benefits of a greener and healthier urban environment for all of us are clear. These spaces offer an abundant gift of health for individual body and spirit, bring the promise of local community and economic development, and help to make New York City and our planet more environmentally secure and sustainable.
Now in its second decade of advocacy for the preservation of New York City’s parks and community gardens, New York Restoration Project (NYRP) continues to support the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation through restoration work and daily maintenance in several of the city’s public parks, all of which are integral to the largely underserved and green space-starved communities that surround them. In addition, NYRP has created the spectacular Swindler Cove Park – reclaimed from a former illegal dumping ground in Upper Manhattan along the shore of the Harlem River. NYRP has since transformed this five-acre New York City park into a vibrant outdoor classroom and center for NYRP’s environmental educational programming.
Furthermore, NYRP’s 52 community gardens have emerged as vital components to everyday city life – functioning as urban village greens in areas where New York City public parks or other open spaces do not or cannot exist. Restoring these shared plots – while introducing formerly over-looked communities to world-class architectural and landscape design, engaging local schoolchildren in outdoor educational and recreational activities, and encouraging neighborhood greening, urban farming and conservation efforts beyond garden borders – is a primary goal and one of the most effective ways that NYRP serves city residents, advancing urban revitalization and sustainability in under-resourced communities throughout the five boroughs.
Click here to explore NYRP managed Parks.
Click here to explore NYRP's Community Gardens.